''Orphans of Apollo'' is a 2008

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

directed and produced by Michael Potter, co-directed by Becky Neiman and edited by Todd Jones, which describes how a band of entrepreneurs tried to privatize the space station

Mir ''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...

and tells the story that led to the development of MirCorp. It features prominent

NewSpace Private spaceflight is spaceflight or the development of spaceflight technology that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency. In the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Uni ...

entrepreneurs and

space advocates Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consid ...

(

Rick Tumlinson Rick Tumlinson is the co-founder of several space companies and non-profits including Deep Space Industries, Orbital Outfitters, the New Worlds Institute, and the Space Frontier Foundation. He is an active space entrepreneur and space activist. ...

Jeffrey Manber Jeffrey Manber is regarded as one of the pioneering commercial space entrepreneurs. As CEO of NanoRacks, from 2009, Manber has steered the growth of the first company to own and market its own hardware and services on board the International Space ...

), backed financially by Walter Anderson.

Background

MirCorp founder Walt Anderson’s highest-profile venture was an audacious plan to take over the Russian space station Mir—which was being abandoned by the Russian space agency—and turn it into a commercial outpost in orbit. That effort ultimately failed. The film’s title refers to those people who came of age during the early years of the Space Age and expected to see progress continue at the rate seen in those heady early days, only to be disappointed—orphaned—by events of the last few decades. If they were going to have the kind of bold future they once envisioned, they would have to build it themselves. And, with MirCorp, that’s what they tried to do. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Smithsonian Institution, an exclusive screening of ''Orphans of Apollo'' was shown in the National Air and Space Museum’s Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater.

Synopsis

''Orphans of Apollo'' is a documentary film based on a group of entrepreneurs heading MirCorp, who negotiate a business deal with the Russian government to lease the Mir space station for commercial use. The film covers the historical period from the time of President Nixon’s decision to end the NASA Apollo Moon program to post-Soviet Russia. More than solely a high-tech space story, the film includes themes of international negotiation, the power of entrepreneur vision, failed effort, and of course political power play. The film combines archival Russian film footage, archival NASA film footage, and IMAX footage, with interviews and original footage of the major players in the project including Walt Anderson, Richard Branson,

Tom Clancy Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American novelist. He is best known for his technically detailed espionage and military-science storylines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of his novels have ...

and others. The documentary has sufficient action to move it along quickly.

Michael Potter

As of 2008, Michael Potter was a Senior Fellow at the

International Institute of Space Commerce The International Institute of Space Commerce (IISC) was established at the Isle of Man in 2007 as a corporation between the International Space University (ISU) and the Government of the Isle of Man. Realizing that the new space economy is bei ...

. Previously, Potter worked as an international telecommunications analyst at the

Center for Strategic and International Studies The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. CSIS was founded as the Center for Strategic and International Studies of Georgetown University in 1962. The center conducts polic ...

(CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Potter was one of the founders of Esprit Telecom, a successful European telecommunications company, where he was president until leaving to establish Paradigm Ventures, a high-technology venture capital firm. Potter was also a founding member of the

European Competitive Telecommunications Association Established in 1998, ECTA is the leading pan-European telecoms association promoting market liberalisation and competition in the European communications sector, fostering ‘competition and open access’ and developing policy by representing � ...

(ECTA). The ECTA pushed for deregulation of telecommunications markets across Europe as a result of commercial practices by former monopolies to limit activities by resellers to access networks and obtain low pricing for the new operators.

Accolades

Winner of the Space Frontier Foundation’s Vision of the Future 2008 award

References

External links